RESPONSIBILITIES
Cindy Maddera
Saturday morning, I sat at a cafe table outside with a mug of coffee and my Fortune Cookie journal. It is the first time I have cracked open that journal in months and months. It is the first time I have sat with myself, enjoying the solitude of one at a cafe table, in months and months. I will not say this is a return to normal. There is no normal, only habit. My habitual routines of before the pandemic got placed into a cocktail shaker where it was shaken and then strained over ice. I thought maybe the Saturday morning routine had gotten lost in the straining part. It still might be; this felt like a test run. I went to a new place with ample outdoor seating, but cringed and shrunk up into a ball every time someone walked by my table. Which was often because it was one of those areas where people are out walking or running in the mornings.
The prompt was something about integrity and bravery being displayed on a billboard and I wrote about the pandemic and masks. I might be a bit rusty.
I am for sure a bit of crank pot.
Public interactions turn me into an unstable nuclear core, vibrating from the strain of keeping myself from violently shaking some people while yelling “WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?!?!?!” But that would require getting close enough to touch them. I honestly thought that my current rageyness was, in part, due to a lack of sleep. I am not sleeping well. There’s tossing and turning, throwing blankets off and pulling them back up. I wake up with some sort of numb digit, sometimes it is one whole leg that has disappeared or disconnected itself from my body. I would wake up in pain. So I finally broke down and bought myself a new mattress. I used some of my rage for fuel to haul my old mattress off of my bed and drag the new one onto my bed frame. Maneuvering bulky items in a small space without wrecking that space takes just as much finesse as it does brute force and I did it. All by myself. Because Michael only has one good arm. The new mattress is nice and I am no longer waking up with missing limbs or pain, but I am still tossing and turning and throwing blankets off only to pull them back on the bed. The anger inside my body is persistent.
The angry eyes I have been looking out at the world with are my eyes. My responsibility. -Sarah Blondin
My anger is formed from loss and grief. It is fueled by a sense of helplessness to effect good changes. It festers in the knowing that we could do so much better than this and it blazes with the idea that at least one person on that lost and grief list would help me find a way to channel all of it into something useful. And that makes me even more angry. These angry eyes are my eyes, my responsibility. I can meet my anger head on with understanding, patience and kindness. I can tell those who attempt to egg-on that anger that they are unwelcome here. I can not control the behavior of others, but I can control my reaction to their behavior. I can flip the tone from positive to negative. I can rotate my view from disparaging to hopeful.
I’m healthy and strong.
I have a job.
My family is healthy.
We all have safe sound roofs over our heads.
We are fortunate.